


Super Trouper

by kelex



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 06:42:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2014980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kelex/pseuds/kelex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose proves she's a trouper, even under interrogation.  (Rose isn't really tortured, but she is treated unkindly.  The Doctor takes great exception to that.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Super Trouper

**Author's Note:**

> _Super Trouper_  
>  _Lights are gonna find you_  
>  _Shining like the sun_  
>  _But I won't feel blue_  
>  _Cause somewhere in the crowd_  
>  _There's you_  
>  \--"Super Trouper", ABBA

The klieg lights were blinding, and Rose tried to raise a hand to shield her eyes. That's when she realized her wrists were bound to the arm of a chair, and she squinted instead, trying to get the bright light to dim. Her eyes were watering in the blare, but no matter how she bent or twisted her head, she couldn't get the light out of her eyes. 

"What is your name?" The voice came from the darkness behind the light's nimbus, the brilliance blinding her to all else except the voice, which could have been a deep woman or a mid-timbre man. 

"Rose Tyler," she answered honestly.

"And the name of your traveling companion, the man who calls himself _the Doctor_?"

On that subject, Rose stayed stubbornly silent, just as she had the previous three times she'd been asked that question. 

"And where are you from, Rose Tyler?"

"Earth." Simple answers, that couldn't be misconstrued or turned around to hurt anyone. 

"This is getting us nowhere." The second voice was definitely a woman's voice, and thoroughly unpleasant. "We have little time left before we're discovered here, and I wouldn't like to contemplate--"

"Yes, Chieftan, I understand." The first voice again, and Rose decided it was a man. "We're aware of the reputation. Perhaps if we moved deeper in--"

"This facility is deadlocked, and that has only slowed him down, not stopped him."

Him. That had to be the Doctor, and Rose felt a surge of triumph. The Doctor had escaped, and was coming to get her. It just made her lock her jaw even tighter. 

"Yes, Chieftan." The male voice cleared its throat and turned back to Rose. "Tell us about the man calling himself The Doctor." 

"Sounds like you know who he is already," Rose said, and she couldn't keep the smirk out of her voice. 

The lights brightened, the radiant heat starting to make her uncomfortable in her jacket and her jeans. She wished, quite thoroughly, that she'd left the bloody jacket back in the TARDIS, but it was too late for that now. But dwelling on it helped to tune out some of the discomfort.

A rocking slap to the side of her face brought her quickly back to the bright light and the questions, and Rose had to bite her lip to keep from calling out. "Tell us about the man calling himself The Doctor," the man repeated. 

"Idiot," muttered the Chieftan's voice, and it cut clearly and coldly through the man's questions. "Miss Tyler, we are running out of time, and I do not have time to continue playing nice. You will tell us everything that you know about the Doctor, or you will regret it."

"I'm not telling you anything." Tiny beads of sweat popped out on her forehead, feeling like she was flushing with a fever. "My name is Rose Tyler, and I'm from the planet Earth." Not quite name, rank, and serial number, but it was all she was going to give out. 

An unpleasant electric shock ran up the right side of Rose's body. "That was mild, Miss Tyler, and the console will rise to voltage enough to stop your heart if you continue to be uncooperative." 

There was a far-away muffled explosion, then one following a few seconds later that was markedly closer. "What was that?" The interrogator's voice sounded frightened as he checked the console. "Oh my goddess, the power substations are going! We're losing power and the mainframe is completely disabled!"

The swear word that Rose heard was not translated by the TARDIS, but she couldn't help taking a fierce satisfaction in the fear that colored her captors' conversations. Exploding power stations, disabled computers, that certainly sounded like her Doctor. If she closed her eyes entirely, she could almost imagine it, step by step. 

When another shock was not forthcoming, Rose realized that the Doctor's explosions must have knocked out the interrogation chamber's toys as well. "Having a little trouble?"

Her captors couldn't be bothered to answer; the interrogator was busy having hysterics over the fact that "He's cut the atmospheric regulators! We're hemorrhaging breathable oxygen, and the weather net is destabilizing as we speak! Hurricanes are churning up offshore, and cyclones have been spotted less than a hundred miles from the center of the city!" Another horrified look. "And we've lost core containment."

"Send out the citywide evacuation signal," the Chieftan ordered as calmly as she could. "Have the atmo team work on restoring the emergency backup protocols, and get ahold of yourself." Another slap, this time to the interrogator instead of Rose. "We must keep our heads, or risk losing them entirely, do you understand?"

In a moment of clarity, Rose did. "If you let me go, the Doctor will help you!" she called out. "He'll stop what he's doing and fix what he's done." Because the Doctor that she knew wasn't a murderer.

The evacuation notice was rambling in the background, but the interrogator spoke over it to the Chieftan. "There's nowhere left to evacuate to!"

Even over the panic and background shouting, Rose heard the distinctive whir-whine of the sonic screwdriver. "I'm in here!" she shouted, kicking at the chair legs with her heels in an attempt to loosen it from the floor. 

The door slid open about halfway, and the Doctor's hands appeared in the crack, shoving the door open far enough to allow him entrance into the room. 

The interrogator swung the now-useless light around, intending to blind the Doctor but realizing too late that it had gone out with the rest of the electronics. 

The Doctor held his screwdriver out towards Rose, and the wrist restraints snapped open in an instant. Rose jumped out of the chair and ran to the Doctor, who gave her a tight hug with both arms. "Rose, are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, how are you?" She was looking him over, and he didn't seem to be any worse for wear. "They didn't hurt you?"

"Nothing I couldn't stand." He looked her over and kissed the top of her head, then turned to glare at the other two in the room. "You've got one choice. You leave now, and I'll let you go." He didn't have to extrapolate for them what the other choice might be; they picked up on it immediately.

Rose put her hand on the Doctor's shoulder. "They don't have anywhere to go," she pointed out. "They said so, the weather computer was causing all kinds of problems, and it was making it impossible to go anywhere." 

"They had a choice. They made it." He gripped her hand tightly. "Come on, I want you back in the TARDIS before anything else happens."

"You've got to help them!" Rose planted her feet against the Doctor's forward momentum. "I promised them, if they let me go you'd help them."

"But they didn't let you go, did they? You gave them a choice and so did I; they didn't take either one of them." The Doctor's voice had an edge of hardness that Rose had never heard before. "They chose this." 

She dug her heels in further, but she didn't really refute what the Doctor had said. She couldn't; she knew the Doctor would have given them a chance before he resorted to utter destruction. And she herself had given them the chance to let her go before the Doctor got there, and they had refused to release her. She understood that, and yet, she wanted the Doctor to show mercy. 

But he didn't. He couldn't. The Doctor would not allow anyone who had hurt Rose to get away with it; once they chose to fight, he was not responsible for what happened to them. He wanted to save lives; he would not stop if they chose to throw them away. 

Rose finally gave in, feeling the Doctor's inexorable pull, and she followed where he led. There was a crowd of people milling throughout the city, and the pair cut through them like butter. She wanted to cover her ears as she ran, trying to tune out the screaming and crying. The TARDIS waited for them in the atrium, and she could just see the lantern on the roof. "Doctor, _please_."

The Doctor was silent as he pulled Rose into the TARDIS, then flicked the switches that would power up the launch. Suddenly, Rose was by his side, hand on his arm. She wasn't saying anything, just watching him with wide, innocent, hopeful eyes. 

He reached up, covering her hand with one of his own, and sighed silently. He canceled the take-off and instead tied the TARDIS into the city's broadcast system. "This is the Doctor, hello." His voice echoed in every corner of the city, and his face filled every communication screen. "You can stop all your running." A few more switches got flicked, and there was an audible _whoosh_ as the atmospheric breaches sealed. "The regulators are back working, so you can breathe easy. I sent out a dissipation signal, so the storms should be dying down in a few days. You can get the computer back online by then."

He cut off the channel, then looked back at Rose. 

She was beaming at him, pride evident in every inch of her grin and in her eyes as well. "Thank you, Doctor." 

He shrugged off the thanks, because he didn't really feel as if he deserved them. He'd only done it at her behest, but he did accept the hug she gave him. "Hey, now. You're all right, that's what matters. Ready to say goodbye to this place?"

"Oh, definitely." Rose watched over his shoulder as he set in a new destination. She didn't ask where, because she trusted the Doctor. "Can't wait to get out of here."

"My sentiments exactly."

The End


End file.
